SEWER WORK: Valley Start Not Affected

SEWER WORK: Valley Start Not Affected

The cost of renovating West Des Moines Valley High School got more expensive Wednesday.

The fall semester will start on time at Valley this year but the school is paying a hefty price to do so.

The school is currently undergoing a $62-million renovation.

District officials recently learned a sewer line into the school is not up to code and classes couldn’t resume until the problem was fixed.

Tuesday night the school board weighed up three options and settled on the most expensive.

They’ll pay $400,000 to have a new, up-to-code sewer line added to the school.

The work will mean a few inconveniences during the first month of classes.

“There’s going to be an impacted area of the school where restrooms will not be functional, they will be closed off, so students and faculty will have to travel further to use restroom facilities but all classrooms will be in their planned areas, we will not have to relocate classrooms so I’m excited about that,” explains school district president, Elizabeth Brennan.

The construction work is tentatively scheduled to be complete by September 9th, three weeks after the school year begins on August 20th.

This is the second year in a row West Des Moines has dealt with a last minute construction problem.

Last summer mold was found inside Hillside Elementary due to leaking windows.

Classes had to be moved to Lutheran Church of Hope for the first 51 days of the school year while the windows were replaced.